The bewildering paths to the Pan Am / Parapan Am Games

Earlier this week, new orange-and-blue signage for the Pan Am/Parapan Am Games began showing up across the roadways of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

More than 5000 will be set up for the duration of the July 10 to August 15 competition and judging from initial reactions you'd think they were the warning signs of an oncoming brainteaser apocalypse.

Organized to relay information and directions to the Games' participants and spectators, the signs feature a three-letter venue code and herein lies the cause of the bewilderment. You see, much like those used by airports, the codes represent a truncated version of a venue's proper name but — just like YYZ (You make no sense Pearson!) — they're not all super intuitive.

The three-letter codes correspond to information on the game tickets, to the spectator guide and to the trip planner app. Some are pretty straightforward, CTC is the Canadian Tennis Centre at York University and that makes total sense and so does ABL, which stands for the Abilities Centre in Whitby that will be hosting Parapan Am judo and boccia (wait, there’s boccia in the Games??)

RCY stands for Sugar Beach — where Pan Am sailing will take place — and TTS is the Pan Am Shooting Centre in Innisfil. What? Okay for these you need to get out your decoder ring to discover that the Royal Canadian Yacht Club is hosting sailing and lending its name to the acronym, just as the Toronto Trap & Skeet Club is doing for the shooting events.

Torontonians won't have much of a home field advantage when it comes to the sign recognition game; due to corporate sponsorships some well-known event spaces will be going by different names this summer. The Rogers Centre is called the Pan Am Ceremonies Venue, PAD (Pan Am Dome) for short, and if someone asks you for directions to the Toronto Coliseum, TCO, that's Ricoh Coliseum down at the CIBC Pan Am Park, PAP, better known as Exhibition Place.

The signs, which run through 16 municipalities, also display pictograms of different sports and they'll point you to parking areas, transit stops and event entrances. Plus, the acronyms work in English, French and Spanish. You see all this confusion is unwarranted; we may soon grow fluent in Pan Am and by summer's end, when these signs come down, feel a bit unchallenged by the straightforwardness of those that remain.

Check them out...

This sign indicates there is an accessible shuttle bus leaving from both St. George and Queen’s Park stations that will bring riders directly to the Pan Am/Parapan Am Fields for field hockey (at the University of Toronto) and to the Ryerson Athletic Centre to see basketball.

This sign points the way towards parking at the Abilities Centre in Whitby, where you can watch Parapan Am judo and boccia.

This way to archery at Varsity Stadium.